Smokin’ Debut

Thick, white smoke billowed from the rear of the Oxnard Performing Arts Center--either Fernando Vargas was set to make a dramatic entrance or the place was burning down.

Sure enough, a mariachi band struck up the opening notes of “Sangre Caliente” and Vargas came dancing down the aisle, through a screaming hometown crowd, climbing into the ring Tuesday night for his professional boxing debut.

“This is what we have been waiting for,” said Al Medina who, along with his wife Rachel, joined an estimated crowd of 1,200 to see the former Olympic welterweight.

“We would have followed him to L.A. if he fought there,” Medina said. “But being that he is a local boy, he went to high school here, trained here, he’s doing the right thing.”

This was the night when Vargas finally made good on his much-publicized promise to fight in the neighborhood where he had grown up. There had been lucrative offers to stage the bout elsewhere, his family said. Then a training injury forced a postponement of the original November date. When fight night finally came around, his older sister Mabel expressed relief.

“Everybody at work, everybody around town knows I’m his sister,” said the 20-year-old chiropractor’s assistant. “They’ve been coming up to me, ‘When’s the fight? How can I get tickets?’ ”

Fans began lining up two hours before the evening’s first bout, chattering amid the sweet smell of barbecue cooking on an open grill in the courtyard. They filed excitedly into the arts center, a complex built in the boxy style of the late-1960s, close enough to the coast to feel the coolness of ocean breezes.

Men came with their buddies. Two women drove from Santa Barbara, inspired to see their first boxing match. There were entire families in attendance.

“The kids look up to Vargas,” said Gerardo Villa of Oxnard. “He is a man of his word.”

Said Johnny Casillas of Moorpark: “It’s great that he’s fighting in his home town. I think boxers ought to do that more often.”

Wednesday night’s fight card assumed the feel of a civic celebration. Robert Garcia, the North American Boxing Federation’s junior lightweight champion and the town’s other resident celebrity, said: “Here in Oxnard, all you hear is that it’s a bad area. The people here like to see someone from Oxnard do well.”

They also like to make noise.

Seated in rows of plush chairs more befitting the opera, the crowd hooted to the blare and strum of the mariachis. They booed when a young boy handled the ring-card girl duties during early bouts. They roared when a tall, slender redhead took over, then roared even louder when she slipped and nearly fell stepping out of the ring.

But the biggest shouts were reserved for Vargas. His theatrical entrance paid unwitting homage to a hall that had played host to three decades of stage plays and ballet. The fighter, wearing sequins of red, white and green, said simply that he wanted “something special” for his debut.

Earlier, Garcia had warned him not to get over-excited.

“There’s no experience better than fighting in front of your hometown crowd,” said Garcia, who fought in Oxnard last year. “But he needs to fight his way. If everybody’s yelling ‘Fernando, Fernando,’ he could go at it toe-to-toe and something bad could happen.”

There was no need to worry.

The fight was over almost before the smoke cleared. Throwing quick combinations, Vargas floored Jorge Morales less than a minute into the first round. The crowd went predictably berserk and one man, apparently overcome with emotion, began chanting “De La Hoya next!”

Even Lou Duva, Vargas’ new big-time trainer, got caught up in the moment, throwing his hands into the air.

“This kid’s gonna put Oxnard on the map,” Duva said.

Despite the quick finish, a satisfied sound of talk and laughter filled the lobby as the crowd headed for home. A promise had been fulfilled.

“He did real good,” said Ruben Velasquez of Oxnard. “He took care of what he had to do.”